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Genesis 5:5

Life and Death

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 27, 2022

Adam lived a long life according to Genesis 5:5. At the end of Adam’s life it summarizes it all in this very short verse. “Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.” Genesis chapter five is the solemn refrain “and he died.” All the people in this genealogy lived longer lives than any of us will ever experience. Methuselah barely fell short of a full millennium at 969 years of age! But regardless of the length the ending is the same; “And he died.” The only bright spot in the chapter is a man called Enoch. He lived 365 years. But the end is not “and he died.” It is “God took him.” It doesn’t record God’s disposition for any in the list except for Enoch. He “walked with God.” He seemed to have been favored by God because of that.

We might be tempted to think the opposite. Enoch was cheated out of a long life like the others. But God taking him is presented as a good thing. You’ve heard it said that “only the good die young.” I expect that this is where that comes from. From this issue we learn that being “taken by God” brings us (who walk with Him by faith in this life) to a better place. It’s a blessing to go to be with God, not a curse. It’s our destiny anyway. Some anonymous person wrote: “Man’s life means: tender teens, teachable twenties, tireless thirties, fiery forties, forceful fifties, serious sixties, sacred seventies, aching eighties, shortening breath, death, the sod, God!”

Even here we know that we will be with God in the next life. This life, whether long or short, ends for every believer at the same place. To be absent from the body is to present with the Lord according to the Apostle Paul. While waiting in a cemetery to conduct a funeral service, Charles Simeon walked among the graves, looking at the epitaphs. He found one that arrested him.

When from the dust of death I rise,

to claim my mansion in the skies,

E’en then shall this be all my plea–

“Jesus hath lived and died for me.”

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Genesis 4:15

The Mark of Cain!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 26, 2022

Genesis 4:15 tells us about God putting a mark on Cain to assure him that he has protection from anyone taking vengeance on him in response to his murder of his brother Abel. Cain tells God he’s afraid that anyone who finds him will exact vengeance. But, “Then the Lord said to him, Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him.” Cain’s life is marked by God’s grace everywhere you look. Even though he offered an inferior sacrifice to God, God did not abandon him. That’s grace. God approached Cain in a fatherly manner giving advice and counsel concerning Cain’s attitude. That’s grace. God exhorted Cain to resist temptation and live honorably in His presence. That’s grace. After he murdered Abel, the Lord confronted him in his sin and offered an opportunity to repent. That’s grace. Cain resisted God’s grace and failed to repent. Even so, God placed a sign on Cain that would protect him throughout his natural life. Now that’s amazing Grace.

What that mark was has been the subject of debate for millenniums. Some argue that it’s a tattoo of some kind. There’s a website (bodyart.com) which has a blog on “Cain’s Mark.” Some suggest it was a special hairstyle. That’s funny. Others have suggested in was his color, i.e., he was made black. Eastern Christian writing says “the Lord was wroth with Cain. . . He beat Cain’s face with hail, which blackened like coal, and thus he remained with a black face.” Until recently the Mormon’s taught this and refused admittance of any black man to the priesthood. (How strange is that?) It’s not possible. One ancient Rabbi suggests that God gave Cain a dog that went with him everywhere he was and protected him. I can imagine a huge Doberman with a spiked collar and a surly disposition. Some renaissance painters put a horn in the middle of Cain’s head. I don’t think so! Some argue that the word “mark” should be translated as “sign.” God gave Cain a sign that assured him of his protection from vengeance. Maybe! Who knows?

But whatever the mark was, it is certainly an indication of God’s grace for one of his created beings, even a murderer. God offered Cain His Amazing Grace of forgiveness and restoration. But Cain refused. He offers all of us sinners the same thing. And Like Cain, we all need it. Horatius Bonar wrote in 1861:

Not what these hands have done can save this guilty soul.

Not what this toiling flesh has borne, can make me whole.

Thy Grace alone, O God; to me can pardon speak;

Thy power alone, O Son of God, can this sore bondage break.

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Genesis 1:4, John 8:12

The Explosion of Light

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 25, 2022

In the 4th verse of the Bible, after God creates light, he declares it “good” and separates it from darkness. As we see in the future days of creation God loves to declare things “good.” Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that God “…has made everything beautiful in its time.” Then chapter three goes on and tells us about there being a time to be born and a time to die and all things in between, both the good things and what seems like bad things. It reminds me of the Jerusalem Bible’s translation of the Apocrypha book of Sirach. In chapter 11 and verse 4 we read, “Good and bad, life and death, poverty and wealth, all come from the Lord.” In Genesis 1:4 we see that light is good and can’t help but notice that darkness is not good! It says, “And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.”

It’s all good, is an interesting statement. God made it clear that it’s not “all” good. I know that God will “work” all things together for our good, but he doesn’t tell us that “all things” are good. We know there are bad things in the world. Hughes acknowledges verse 4 as the “…beginning of the motif of darkness and light in Scripture, in which darkness and light are mutually exclusive realms. Ultimately Christ will bring eternal light to his people and to all creation. The end will be an explosion of light.”1 But we live in a world were bad things happen and sometimes they happen to good people! We lost a 40 year old friend to Covid recently. Would anyone really say such a things is “good.” No! But we have faith that God will “work out” even that terrible thing to be good for all involved. We won’t see that till the Lord returns in my opinion or until we’re reunited with our loved ones in Heaven. In the mean time his wife and family and friends will miss him dearly! But on that great day, an “explosion of light” will dispel all the darkness in the world. I don’t think we’re really looking at the idea of physical light and darkness. It seems to me we’re looking at what is “good” and then what is “bad” in contrast. Guzik says, “Genesis tells us that light, day, and night each existed before the sun and the moon were created on the fourth day (Genesis 1:14–19). This shows us that light is more than a physical substance; it also has a supernatural aspect. In the new heavens and the new earth, there won’t be any sun or moon. God Himself will be the light (Revelation 22:5).”2

There is plenty of darkness in our lives now and we all experience it. Sometimes the darkness in our lives seems so awful that we can feel it. This is the kind of darkness that God had Moses bring upon the Egyptians in Exodus 10:21. It says that the darkness was so severe that it could be felt. I believe that Jesus took that darkness upon himself on the cross of Calvary. You are way ahead of me here, aren’t you? John 1, the New Testament Parallel of Genesis 1 present to us the resolution of our darkness. There will be the great “explosion” of light when Christ returns but we can remember than the darkness of our lives even now has been defeated. It’s the ultimate promise of the fulfillment of the whole story of the Bible when Jesus will dispel the darkness once and for all at the end, but he can dispel our pains of the day through faith in him. In John 8:12, Jesus said, “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” There is a sense in which Butler is absolutely correct, “God is still separating darkness from light and in principle evil from good. Many in this world would mix darkness with light and wheat with the tares and sheep with goats. But it is an unholy mixture.”3

1 R. Kent Hughes, Genesis: Beginning and Blessing, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004), 28.

2 David Guzik, Genesis, David Guzik’s Commentaries on the Bible (Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik, 2013), Ge 1:3–5.

3 John G. Butler, Analytical Bible Expositor: Genesis (Clinton, IA: LBC Publications, 2008), 14.

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Luke 24:44-45, Matthew 12:40, Deuteronomy 18:15

Jesus and a burning heart!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 24, 2022

On the road to Emmaus, Jesus met Cleopas and another disciple and explained to them in Luke 24:44-45 that, everything written about him “in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” I’ve often thought how great that would have been to have been able to hear what Jesus had to say and have my mind opened to understand the Old Testament like that. But there are references enough from Jesus and the writers of the New Testament to know that Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection will be the most significant themes he discussed. Warren Gage argues, “The third day passages are widely distributed throughout Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Writings), a distribution which satisfies the canonical claim of Jesus. We can therefore be fairly certain that the Emmaus conversation targeted these passages in the Lord’s explanation of the necessity of his suffering prior to his glory.”1

Is it really an appropriate hermeneutic (approach to interpreting the Bible) to understand the Old Testament as being primarily the message of God’s promised deliverance of man from the Sin that would be ultimately fulfilled in Jesus on the cross? The Bible contains much wisdom for our daily lives in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. There is the history of Israel from Abraham to the birth of Jesus. There are stories about characters who have fascinating life experiences for our benefit but don’t all these things have a more significant meaning? Jesus understood much of all three parts of the Scriptures to be about himself. When the religious leaders asked for a sign from Jesus to prove that he was indeed the Messiah, Jesus told them in Matthew 12:40 there was only one sign that he would give them and he pulled that sign out of the Old Testament and said, “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Opening the mind to understand the Bible is the see Jesus as the subject of the whole thing! The resurrection of Jonah from the belly of the great fish is about Jesus. When we read Psalm 16 where the writer says that God will not let his anointed one undergo decay, he’s referring to the necessity of Jesus resurrection on the third day. It’s about Jesus. When Moses speaks to the people in Deuteronomy 18:15 saying “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen” he is speaking about Jesus. When we see the many, many references about Jesus in the Old Testament Scriptures we understand that Jesus is the “Word” from God to us all. Our minds have been opened. We will experience what the two disciples on the road to Emmaus experienced when they said, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”

1 Warren Austin Gage, Milestones to Emmaus: The Third Day Resurrection in the Old Testament (Fort Lauderdale, FL: Warren A. Gage, 2011), 4.

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Joel 2:32, Hosea 6:1-2, Psalm 16:10

Jesus and the Day of the Lord!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 23, 2022

Jesus taught his disciples that it was necessary for him to suffer, be rejected by the religious leaders, to die, be buried and then he would rise again on the third day. That resurrection is not a clear theme in the Old Testament is inaccurate. We see that Hosea made reference to it clearly. Hosea 6:1-2 says, “Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.” There are many other allusions to a “third day” resurrection in the Old Testament as well. It seems that some in Jesus day understood the idea. The religious leaders understood this because they posted guards at Jesus’ tomb to be sure his body didn’t disappear by any means on the third day. They knew this would create a movement furthering the contention that Jesus was the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. Cleopas and his friend understood the Old Testament prophecy concerning a third day resurrection also it appears. When they were describing the situation that had taken place in Jerusalem surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus they said, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive.” The two disciples on the road to Emmaus said that when Jesus opened their eyes to understand the Scriptures, their hearts burned within them. Later, Jesus appears to the disciples and says, “…everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

Jesus interpreted the prophets as being about himself. The Prophet Joel was one that focused on “The Day of the Lord.” He was speaking of the day of Jesus death on the cross where the sins of the world were placed upon the back of the Son of God on the Cross. Joel 2:31 says, The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.” Luke and Matthew say pretty much the same thing that Mark says when describing the scene of Jesus’ death on the cross. Mark 15:33 says, “And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.” The day of the Lord, according to Joel 2:32, continued and “And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.”

According to Jewish tradition it appears that the “corruption” of the body takes place by the fourth day. This might help us understand Martha’s argument with Jesus in John 11:38 that Lazarus’ has been dead for “four” days and that corruption has already taken over his body. She told Jesus that by this time his body “stinks.” This might also help us understand why resurrection for the Messiah had to take place on the third day. Even the Psalmist says such in Psalm 16:10. It reads, “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.” Every part of the Old Testament is about Jesus. He’s the complete fulfillment. This is what Gage means when he writes, “All of these events (Old Testament) constituted the Day of the Lord, making the “third day” the eschatological day of the victory of God against his enemies, as foreseen by Moses and the Prophets of Israel.”1

1 Warren Austin Gage, Milestones to Emmaus: The Third Day Resurrection in the Old Testament (Fort Lauderdale, FL: Warren A. Gage, 2011), 4.

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Hosea 6:1-2, Mark 8:31, John 12:24

Resurrection is a fact of life!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 22, 2022

Some Bible Scholars argue that the resurrection of the dead is not a primary biblical theme and is absent in the Old Testament except in allusions at best. N. T. Wright says, “It is all the more surprising, then, to discover that, within the Bible itself, the hope of resurrection makes rare appearances, so rare that some have considered them marginal.”1 According to Gage, “Gordon Fee makes a similar but yet more sweeping rejection of Paul’s claim that the resurrection, especially the ‘third day’ resurrection, was ‘according to the Scriptures’ (1 Cor 15:3–4). He writes about the ‘difficulty’ of Paul’s claim, boldly saying, ‘… neither the tradition of the third day nor the Resurrection is well attested in the OT …’” (see Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987) 727).2 One can’t help notice that resurrection, especially on the third day, is explicitly expressed in the Old Testament. Hosea 6:1-2 says, “ “Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.”

We live with images of a “resurrection” every day of our lives. After a long day we have dinner and settle down in our comfy chairs to enjoy some brief entertainment but within an hour or so both of us have dosed off. One will wake up first and rouse the other to go to bed. We’re tired, and sometimes exhausted, but we know that sleep will restore us and we will rise again refreshed in the morning. It’s interesting that Paul speaks of “sleep” as an allusion to the death of believers. He knows there will be a resurrection. We grow accustomed to this routine and accept it as inevitable. I know there may be a time, now at 75 years of age, when I may not wake up after going to sleep but I’ve been alive long enough to learn the pattern and believe in it. God takes delight in showing us the truth of the idea of resurrection every day of our lives. It happens with food. I get famished and eat and I am restored. I get sick, and with or sometimes without medicine my health is restored. I hurt myself, break an arm, cut my finger, and pretty soon I’m as good as new. We see resurrections every day! Suffering is essential for resurrection. This is what Jesus was trying to get across to his disciples in Mark 8:31 when he “…began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.”

We also see it in the world all around us. We see it in the going down of the sun followed by its rising the next day. I believe that night came first in the Hebrew schedule of the day. Frequently in Genesis it’s said “It was evening and morning” on each day of creation with evening being mentioned first. Before there can be sun rise there is sunset. In the Jewish calendar days begin at sunset not at sunrise. The seasons show us the death of things with the winter followed by the rebirth or resurrection of all things in the spring and summer. Gage says, “The Creator has made all nature to be filled with images of life emerging abundantly from death. As the Savior taught, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth to die, it remains alone. But if it die, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). The biblical image of this natural rebirth is “resurrection.”2

1 N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2003), 85.

2 Warren Austin Gage, Milestones to Emmaus: The Third Day Resurrection in the Old Testament (Fort Lauderdale, FL: Warren A. Gage, 2011), 1.

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Genesis 1:1, John 14:6

Jesus is the truth!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 21, 2022

The philosopher Jean-Paul Sarte understood the central question of all life. The main problem he said is, “there is something rather than nothing.” Maybe it’s the same idea that Descartes had when he said, “I think therefore, I am.” He said it in Latin, “cogito, ergo sum.” We can argue about most things easy enough, but it’s really hard to argue against the reality of my “being.” Neil Diamond sang, “I am I said to no one there And no one heard at all, not even the chair! I am I cried, I am said I and I am lost and I can’t even say why, leavin’ me lonely still.” There is a big problem regarding the source of all life in general and the source of my life specifically however if you come to grips with the first, you’ll resolve the second. It’s the second question that’s the real problem isn’t it? I could ignore the issue of the origin of the universe and all matter but it’s really hard to ignore the question of the origin of mankind. We all would like to know where we came from because we all scream at the universe for an answer.

The Bible is God’s answer to that existential scream regarding our existence. That’s one thing, even the greatest philosophers recognized. God doesn’t fool around with hundreds of pages of dialogue before answering this question for us. He begins his revelation to man with the answer. The first verse in the Bible is that answer. Genesis 1:1 simply says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  One day, students in one of Albert Einstein’s classes were saying they had decided there was no God. Einstein asked them how much of all the knowledge in the world they had among themselves collectively, as a class. The students discussed it for a while and decided they had 5% of all human knowledge among themselves. Einstein thought their estimate was a little generous, but he replied: “Is it possible God exists in the 95% you don’t know?” Phil Donahue turned Madelyn Murray O’hare from an atheist into an agnostic with this thought on his TV show once many, many years ago. You cannot actually claim that there is no God without claiming to possess all the knowledge in the universe. And from every which way you might look at that, it’s ridiculous to make such a claim. Twice in the Psalms we read, “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” (See Psalm 14:1 and Psalm 53:1).

It just seems that the fact of one’s existence is undeniable. Even if you wished to deny your existence you have to exist to do so. The person who says there is no such thing as absolute truth is simply making a self defeating claim for if there is no absolute truth then that statement is not absolute truth so it’s self defeating. It is a contradiction in and of itself. We spend too much time in life struggling with the problem rather than enjoying our lives. Kierkegaard said, “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” He also said, “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” I found a blogger on the web that rejects the notion of God yet still understands that the contention that there is no such thing as absolute truth is a self contradictory statement. They write, “Let’s get one thing straight: Contradiction is not deep thinking. It’s make believe. It’s mysticism. It’s a galaxy far far away. It’s not philosophy. It’s not wisdom, and it’s certainly not truth…of any kind.” If atheism is patently ridiculous, our angst is not that there is not a God, but that we don’t know God. The Bible answers this issue also. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

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Genesis 2, Luke 24:27, 32

Jesus gets a Bride!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 20, 2022

God brought all the animals to Adam to name. They came to him “male and female.” Each elephant had it’s sow. Each ram had it’s ewe. Each Lion had it lioness, etc. Mark Twain had a joke where he described Adam coming home to Eve after naming all the animals. Eve looked at an elephant and said, “What did you name that big animal?” Adam replied, “I called it an elephant.” Eve asked, “Why did you call it an elephant?” Adam answered, “Because it looked like an elephant!” That’s a little misleading because all the animals were named before God brought Eve out of Adam’s side. Genesis says, that after Adam had named this animals, male and female, “…for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.” Adam did his duty but became acutely aware of the fact that he was alone! God said that it wasn’t good for Adam (Man) to be alone so he put Adam into a deathlike sleep. He opened up Adam’s side and took from his “side.” The normal understanding is that God took out a rib and made woman from that. There is even a old wive’s tale that says that this explains why women have one more rib than men have, but that’s not true. We all have the same amount! Guzik says, “We don’t really know exactly what God took from Adam’s side to make Eve, and it doesn’t really matter. Modern research into cloning and genetic replication shows every cell in our body contains the body’s entire genetic blueprint. God took some of Adam’s cells and changed their genetic blueprint in the creation of Eve.”1

After God put Adam into a deathlike trance (sleep?), “..God pierced his side, creating a bloody wound. …God wounded the man and took out of his side the substance with which he created his bride. Then God healed Adam’s wound and awakened him in the garden. And God brought to Adam the bride who fulfilled all his heart with her beauty and purity.”2 We also know the Bride of Christ comes from the wound made in the side of the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Gage describes this well, “Now on the cross God brought upon the new Adam the sleep of death. Although Jesus, like Adam, was innocent, nonetheless God wounded him, permitting his side to be pierced by a Roman spear (John 19:34). God took the substance out of the side of Jesus and created a bride for this new Adam, purchased with blood and washed with water. God then healed Jesus of his wound, and awakened him from the sleep of death in a garden (John 20:15), having given life to his bride, who will one day be presented to him in all the beauty and purity of her new creation in a redeemed garden (Rev 21:2). In other words, the narrative of the creation of Eve through the wounding of Adam proclaims the gospel from the foundations of the world, all in the good purposes of God. After suffering a pierced side, Adam was awakened to the glory of his reward, the bride of his heart’s desire.”2

This may seem like a fanciful way of interpretation but remember what Jesus said to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Luke 24:27 tells us , “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Is it really “stretching it” to see Jesus in all of the Scriptures? Gage continues his argument, “Luke tells us that Jesus ‘opened the Scriptures’ to the disciples and that their hearts ‘burned within them’ on the road (Luke 24:32). There! That’s it! We will know we have arrived at our destination when we come to the place where we believe the Scriptures have opened their very meaning up to us, and that our hearts burn within us as we see that the theme of the Old Testament is about the gospel, that all the Hebrew Scriptures are about our precious Savior, his suffering and glory and his third day triumph over death!”2

1 David Guzik, Genesis, David Guzik’s Commentaries on the Bible (Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik, 2013), Ge 2:21–22.

2 Warren Austin Gage, Milestones to Emmaus: The Third Day Resurrection in the Old Testament (Fort Lauderdale, FL: Warren A. Gage, 2011), 8.

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